Westerly

This has nothing to do with safety, it has to do with bringing our license requirements in line with the international standard. For example, USPA also has the requirement for 2 night jumps to get a "D" License, which has been debated endlessly. The international license has no such requirement, and making 2 night jumps has nothing to do with safety. If it has nothing to do with safety, why have the requirement at all? Shouldent the point of a license requirement be to prove a level of higher competence (relative to a lower license level)?

How does the Swift 3 compare to the Hatch? I've been using the Hatch as a student suit.

Seems like an extremely poor idea. If one of your handles comes out, you're going straight into the turbines or exhaust grate. You could remove your main and reserve, but then you wont really accomplish what you're looking for. I would take that bet. I personally watched someone with 4000 RW skydives try a tunnel for the first time. He couldent even stay off the mesh in a belly position. Even after a 10 minutes he was having trouble turning points without running into the wall. A wind tunnel is not the sky. They are different in a few ways. A skydiver can get used to it somewhat quickly, but their first fly is going to suck compared to what they do in the sky.

I am looking to get my first wingsuit. I was using a Hatch for my FFC and several instructors have recommended the Swift 3. What do you think? On another note, how important is it to have a 7-cell canopy for wingsuiting? I've been using a 9-cell square 170 canopy with a low WL (less than 1.1). It's opened fine so far, but I have only done a handfull of jumps so that doesent say too much yet.

How is the 30" Skysnatch for standard terminal jumps? I was looking at getting one for a dual purpose WS rig that I use for belly jumps too, but 30" ZP seems a bit large for terminal jumps. PD warns that too large of a PC can cause hard openings and it seems most companies recommend a 27 - 30" F111 PC for terminal jumps.

Do you even need to use a link at all? My kit was assembled by an FAA master rigger and he just girth hitched the bridle straight to the canopy. Seems like an easy way to eliminate one extra link in the chain, save weight and save money.

It seems that whenever reliability is really needed--reserves, BASE mains, wingsuit mains--the go-to is a 7 cell parachute. Why? How do fewer cells yield more reliable openings? I always figured the planform shape (e.g. square vs fully elliptical) is a far more important factor in determining opening reliability than how many cells there are. Is that incorrect?

Did you get the 26" or 30" version? Seems almost hard to believe a 26" ZP PC will produce more drag than a 30" F111 that's in good condition. The 30" has a quite a bit more surface area.

Probably avoid skyhook. Jury's still out about whether it's a good idea with wingsuits as far as I'm concerned. It could mess with AAD deployments. My wife's vector doesn't have it for that reason. How is a Skyhook going to mess with an AAD deployment? All MARDs are designed to disconnect from the bridle if the reserve is fired without the main out.

I support it. I see it as this: 1. Very few are going to get their A license and then just quit. 2. You can still jump on student status and you can even jump with other people if they have a coach rating or D license. Since you can still jump without a license and you're going to do more than 25 jumps anyway, I see no reason why stretching it out to 30 for IAD students would result in any meaningful problems. It mostly just means you cant jump at a new DZ yet and you cant jump with a bunch of other noobs, both of which are not bad things for someone that new to the sport.

Well, you know, you could just jump at a real DZ with real aircraft. Living out in the boonies comes with some disadvantages... I agree with USPA's changes. The license requirements for C and D are too easy as it is, less the 50 9' accuracy jumps for the C license. Even with the changes as is, it's still not that hard to get the requirements done. Regardless of whether your local aircraft can support the requirements or not, there needs to be a requirement to prove some level of group skydiving competency. As it was, in theory you could have someone with a D license who has only a few group jumps outside of AFF and 490 some solos.

Well, you know, you could always just still require two AFF-Is in cat A and B regardless... I am not aware of any BSR that says DZs cannot require more instructors than the minimal if they dont feel the jump can be safely accomplished with just one instructor. I agree though, I dont think wind tunnel time is an appropriate substitution. Getting in a wind tunnel will help with body position, but I dont know it will do much to prepare the student for the mental aspect of the skydive.

You can be the best packer in the history of the sport and still open a ball of crap above your head. Packing well does not guarantee anything. Likewise, having a malfunction (depending on the mal) does not mean your packing automatically sucked either. Sometimes malfunctions just happen and no matter how well you pack you can never guarantee they wont happen no matter what you do during the packing process. On rare occasion, reserve parachutes have malfunctioned before. Safe to say most reserves are packed very well. Also, some disciplines and canopies are far more likely to require a cutaway than others. Opening in line twists on a highly loaded, crossbrased canopy can cause rapid spins leading to a cutaway whereas that is not nearly as likely to happen on a lightly loaded square canopy.

Not necessarily true. I think many DZs want a student to start and finish at the same location and transfers tend to be more case-by-case. I have seen DZs that will not accept transfers and will require you to start over, or at least start back a few levels. I am not an AFF instructor, but I suspect some instructors would have reservations about doing a release jump with a student they have never jumped with before, know nothing about and at a DZ they know the student has never jumped at before. The ISP is intended to be part of a progression that involves start-to-finish training with an instructor or two who know the student and know what s/he needs to work on and what s/he is strong with.

Which in this case seems to be the right to be racist. Not exactly a noble cause... Whatever. It's his grave. He can dig it with an excavator on speed if he wants to.

I am having an issue that I have been trying to solve for the last 100 jumps or so. Every time I pull my altimeter typically says it takes 800 – 1200’ to deploy my main. This is how I obtain that data: - Lock onto altimeter at 4000’ with hand on PC handle - Pull handle at 3500’ - Look at altimeter as soon as slider is down, subtract the difference in altitudes I’ve done that almost 100 times now and the readings are consistently 800 – 1200’. More recently I started filming my openings. I have filmed my openings about 10 times and from the time that the PC is out of the mesh pocket until the time the slider is down is 5 seconds on average. The canopy only snivels for 4 seconds on average with 1 second in freefall. . I normally jump with a Viso 2+, I have borrowed other Visos to try and I have even tried an old school analog Galaxy. They all say 800 – 1200’ despite the fact that my videos clearly show 5 seconds total, 4 seconds snivel time which means a more realistic opening distance of maybe 500’ This is an issue I cant figure out. I ran it by L&B and the only answer I got was that I can mail my altimeter in for a refund if I want… Very useful.

Why is that important? I can't think of a reason why it would affect the actions of any other group. Reasons I can think of is if after opening someone is looking around counting canopies they may wonder why they are 1 short (because it is 2k ft above them), or it is a good habit because some DZs and boogies have rules about not opening above 3k, and announcing your intentions to do so will give others a chance to tell you that is not allowed. But if I was at a DZ where it was allowed, I would not feel the need to announce my opening altitude, if I was under Tandem opening alti. I have heard of not being allowed to open above 4k unless you're in the back, but forcing everyone to pull at 3k is silly and unsafe. Forcing a student who just his A license and 25 jumps to open at 3k all the time is unsafe. For A license holders, the minimum decision altitude is 2.5k which means if you open at 3k you will be below your decision altitude upon opening 100% of the time. Even for those who have a decision altitude of 2k, you're still going to be at or below your decision altitude upon opening most of the time if you open at 3k.

I understand your point that manufacturers should design their parachutes to work well without modification, but abandoning a parachute and purchasing another is expensive. I wonder how much an ICU visit from a broken neck costs.

You know that the original Sabre can be made to open quite nicely with a larger slider or pocket slider? One source of information: http://www.pcprg.com/hardop.htm Which is the whole point. Self-engineering your parachute because the OEM design doesn't work well is absurd. Would you find it acceptable to jerry rig the braking system on your truck if the OEM brakes dident work well?

The most effective way to solve hard openings on a Saber 1 is to throw it in the trash.

No, not always, just nearly always.

I hear most of those on a regular basis except #3 and #2. #1 happens on at least a few loads every single day. Some jumpers at my DZ always pull at 4500' Post AFF students are taught to pull at 5,000' all the way through AFF so they will likely do the same just after AFF.

As a seller I would never agree to that. Fraud goes both ways. I have no guarantee I’ll get the other 50%. Just like anything else in life you pay before you play, otherwise you can use an escrow service which is common. Also, COD is another option that I have used. It protects the buyer and seller without having to pay any PayPal fees. You don’t pay until you have the package in hand but as a seller I have a guarantee the carrier won’t deliver the package without collecting full payment.

Filming in a vertical orientation is sloppy and unprofessional. Kids do it because they are idiots and don’t know how to use a camera properly. Go ask this question on a professional Videographers forum and see what kind of answer you get... Also mobile phones are the minority. Most YouTube users are watching on a computer and nothing says ‘I don’t know jack about cameras’ like loading up a YouTube video filmed in the wrong aspect ratio.

I am curious how likely you are to break the thing when packing it. It's not as much that I care about breaking the GPS as much as if the battery were to fail and leak you would have to replace your whole main, container and even possibly your reserve. Curious how likely that is to happen.